


Resurgence

by ykoriana



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Fix-It, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, POV Second Person, Spoilers, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-24 17:00:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21861349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ykoriana/pseuds/ykoriana
Summary: While I mostly enjoyed The Rise of Skywalker, I noticed that sadly in his haste to get the movie to a working length J.J. Abrams seems to have cut the part where General Hux turns out to have hatched a dastardly, masterful plan to fake his own death and escape the First Order. So I fixed it.Or, the one where General Armitage Hux goes "SURPRISE BITCH! BET YOU THOUGHT YOU'D SEEN THE LAST OF ME!"
Comments: 14
Kudos: 50





	Resurgence

Dying in the First Order is messy and humiliating, no matter how you go about it. No amount of careful planning ever prepares you for physical pain; and the secret knowledge that you’re playing a long con only barely assuages the shock of the fall.

The fall, when it comes, is both sudden and predictable; voltage courses through your body, you violently hit the ground, and your last thought is that everything went wrong, you died a failure, and a faint echo of Brendol’s voice reverberates through the shockwaves bouncing around your skull before everything goes black.

And then you come to your senses moments later, being unceremoniously dragged by the legs by a pair of Stormtroopers visibly annoyed at having to put out the trash. “At least we’ll never have to listen to one of those speeches”, one of them sighs, but you remain limp, yet another snide comment, yet another humiliation, I MADE ALL OF YOU INTO PERFECT SOLDIERS, YOU INGRATES, another silent scream, just one more to add to your impressive collection amassed since a tender age.

Not weak. Patient.

Not weak, when every day you wrapped your torso in layers of blast-dampening material painstakingly and discreetly sourced for years, of the rarest and most expensive kind, slim and flexible, once worn by the royals of Naboo, all but disappeared since the end of the Clone Wars. Ah, the jolt of fear you’d felt the first time you’d worn it, the fear you felt anew every time you tentatively added another layer and worried they’d notice the bulk, until you realized they thought you were padding your uniform out of  _ vanity _ .

They were all alike, in the end: Brendol, Snoke, Ren, Pryde. They broke and destroyed people like baubles. There was no way this particular equation would ever end with you alive, regardless of who last remained standing.

The insulating material is not one-hundred percent blast proof, especially at close range, but since you are alive and your pain is horrible but just short of agonizing, it seems to have done its job.

Doesn’t help being dragged on the floor like a sack of Bantha shit, especially when they turn a corner and your side hits the wall, your whole upper body as if on fire, biting your lip not to scream.

You know this ship like the palm of your hand, and even with eyes closed you know they’re taking you to the nearest trash compactor. And even though you predicted it, even though it’s perfectly going according to plan, that they are discarding you like the traitor trash you are… it hurts. It hurts in places you long thought numb, scarred over and over again.

And then they drop you in the trash compactor, another fall, the sick embrace of debris and foul water, and still you do not move. The door behind you shuts and the footsteps echo away while you shut eyes and mouth and sink to the bottom. This, too, is another death. Liquid darkness, the sharp edges of discarded parts digging into your back, and you hold your breath. The fresh hit of cold, dirty water in your burn wounds inflames them anew, and you hold your breath. 

You realize you are tired, so tired, and in a perverse way floating in a pool of trash is almost soothing. It’s been so long since you’ve been in the water, since that day in Arkanis.

You could just keep holding your breath, fade into the darkness.

Die like Brendol, floating, with his insides melting in that bacta tank.

_ No. _

Rising to the surface, you take a gulp of air and freeze, suddenly fearful of someone still being within earshot. But nothing is there. You labor to take deep slow breaths, maneuvering your abused body into a more comfortable position as you carefully inspect the compactor chamber. Since you are one of the few high command officers who actually read  _ every single report _ on everything from food resources to sanitation, you are well aware that the urban legends on trash monsters can be more than just scary stories.

But it’s just you down here. You resist the urge to inspect your wounds, exposing them to a veritable dictionary of pathogens in this filthy hole. Despite the burns to your torso and the shot to your leg, you are mostly mobile. Carefully maneuvering around the flotsam, you make your way to the control panel and with the help of a sharp bit of discarded metal (probably TIE hull shielding, you think absently), pry the lid open and then disable the magnetic lock. 

Digging in the trash, you find a long metal tube, a reasonable if crude weapon. And poised just behind the door, you wait.

The sounds of the battle slowly make their way to you.  _ Something _ is clearly not going according to the Order’s plans, and you can’t help wonder, did you start this in motion when you helped the rebels? Or has Ren’s obsession with hunting the scavenger girl finally become the undoing of all?

Footsteps just outside the door. First what sounds like an entire battalion - no good. Another group, and another, until - wait, here it comes, the hurried step of some unfortunate trooper who took too long to suit up and is racing to regroup with his squad.

It’s so easy, like one of those slapstick comedy New Republic holos the troopers watch surreptitiously. You open the door, trip the hapless Stormtrooper and bonk him in the head, and in a matter of seconds you’ve managed to drag him into the trash compactor and seal the door again. Working against your pain, you don the armor of the unconscious soldier and sweating, hurting, breathing through gritted teeth, you step into the corridor and try to make your stride as cool and professional as possible.

But everything seems to be going to hell around you, alarms blaring, squads running, explosions rocking the ship, so really, you actually blend in better by looking somewhat panicked. Perfection. No one gives a fuck about a single Stormtrooper running amok, no one thinks to check what squad you belong to or ask why you’re making your way to the salvage hangar, where they park the ships of the unfortunate fools who cross the Order’s path just before they are taken to experience the hospitality of the interrogation rooms.

Moving slowly in the shadows along the walls, you reach a particular spot that looks, for all the world to see, like an access panel for life support systems - the kind of system that only high clearance techs can touch, lest one accidentally vents all the ship’s oxygen into space. Entering your carefully crafted and highly irregular code, you open the panel and reach into the space between the tubing, retrieving the bag you hid a long time ago. It was a distant hypothesis then, this plan, but just the knowledge of it was a relief in the endless maelstrom of the First Order’s last years. Yet when Ren ascended, you knew your insane plan was your only chance of survival.

You briefly scan the bag’s contents; all accounted for. A change of civilian clothes, med kit, blaster, credit chips in a few currencies, code medallions, a couple of fake IDs. The rest of your nest eggs are carefully spread across the galaxy, deposits in a dozen currencies in a dozen planets, more fake IDs in safe sites, a few investments in the stock and ore exchanges just because you’re that much of an extra bastard.

You have, of course, a mental inventory of every ship in this hangar, updated daily. And as fate would have it, the best ship in the hangar right now is an A-Wing Interceptor, captured during the Knights’ search for the Resistance spy. You appreciate the irony, even if you cannot bring yourself to feel a moment’s pity for a pilot that was sacrificed because of your revenge scheme.

Pity has been hammered out of you long, long ago.

You make your way to the ship and yes, fuel tank’s still almost full. You are considering using one of the medallions to get flight clearance when a particularly intense explosion rocks the entire ship and then you just  _ react, _ push thrusters and fly out of the hangar.

Into a scene of complete and utter chaos.

There are ships everywhere. All kinds of ships. X-Wings, A-Wings, Mon Cala cruisers, wait, was that a  CR90 Corellian corvette? And the fleet is on fire.  _ Everything _ is on fire. The Star Destroyers, seemingly unable to break atmo, are taking a pounding from this gigantic ragtag fleet apparently gathered from all corners of the galaxy.

And you laugh. You laugh out loud in the A-Wing’s cockpit. You laugh like a madman.

Ren did it. You don’t know how or why, but  _ Ren did it. _ He fucked up everything, just like you knew he would.

For a moment, you consider pretending you are one of them and firing upon the Order’s fleet. Wonder if the shock from the wounds is finally setting in. If you wanted that, really turning against the Order, you could have left with the rebel scum hours ago instead of suffering the pain and ignominy of being outed as a traitor in front of all of your officers, shot at point blank and dumped into a trash compactor. Surely the Resistance would have welcomed you... with a fair trial and a nice cell.

You’re not like that. And so you just punch one of several coordinates you memorized long ago into the ship’s computer and jump into hyperspace.

The blinding light, and then the welcoming darkness.

This spot, like others you memorized, is in the middle of nowhere. Just on the outskirts of a modest, mostly agricultural world in the Mid Rim. Not much of a fleet, not many ships going in and out. You maneuver the A-Wing into an orbit around a gas giant, adjusting velocity so that you remain on the planet’s dark side.

You take off the Stormtrooper armor, dropping it piece by piece on the cockpit’s floor, taking care not to hit any of the levers. You are forced to rip the remnants of your uniform and blast-dampening fabric, charred and congealed with burnt blood and flesh, letting out a howl of pain. In the dark embrace of silence, the sound of your voice startles you.

It’s been a long time since you last screamed out loud.

A couple of medi-scans later, it’s confirmed. Your lower torso is covered in third degree burns, severe but not life threatening. Good thing you tripled the bacta patches in the med kit. When you are satisfied that all affected areas are covered, you tie some bandages over the patches for extra safety, pop some antibiotics and anti inflammatories, barely feeling the sting of the hypo needle after all you’ve been through today.

You don’t even know what happened on Exagol.

And truly, you don’t care.

Adjusting the seat, you will yourself to relax a fraction. Your body has long ago locked all muscles in constant tension, fight or flight, but you know you must allow yourself to heal now, or else run the risk of dying a silent death among the stars.

Not after all you’ve been through.

After you’ve rested, there will be time to decide what to do next. 

Now you are free.


End file.
